


A Gift, for a Friend

by Cherepashka



Series: Fëanorian Week 2019 [4]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Back to Middle-Earth Month 2019, Banter, Dwarves of Nogrod, Elf-Dwarf Friendship, Friendship, Fëanorian Week 2019, Gen, Knives, Male-Female Friendship, Swords, Telchar has to explain how being friends works, Treaty Negotiations, and has low self-esteem, because Caranthir is inexperienced at it, gift-giving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-21
Updated: 2019-03-21
Packaged: 2020-01-06 16:59:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18392555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cherepashka/pseuds/Cherepashka
Summary: Caranthir thinks Telchar only keeps him around for his conscientious approach to treaty-drafting.(A few lighter moments between them, on one of Caranthir's visits to Nogrod during the Long Peace.)





	A Gift, for a Friend

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Fëanorian Week 2019, for the prompt: Caranthir – Dwarves and Humans. (Well, I fit in the dwarves, anyway.)
> 
> Also for the following B2MeM 2019 cards and prompts:  
> Artifacts and Weapons card: B7 (Narsil), B9 (Fëanorian lamp)  
> Emotions card: B9 (Affection)

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Telchar said, ushering Caranthir back into her workshop. The room was hot; one of her apprentices must have been working in here, and the warmth from the now-banked forge-fire radiated back from the walls. She looked up at Caranthir and grinned. “I rather think you impressed her.” 

Once he would have gone beet red and scowled, assuming he was being mocked. Now he only raised an eyebrow and said, dryly, “Did I? I rather thought she was glaring at me the whole time.” 

The ascendance of a new Dwarvenking of Tumunzahar had necessitated the renewal of the city’s treaties with its Noldorin neighbors, and as century-old treaties could hardly be renewed without revisions, Caranthir had come in person for the negotiations. The first day of these had just ended. Telchar, in attendance as the representative of the Smiths’ Guild, had spent most of the session sketching sword hilt designs, largely tuning out the tedious, finicky quibbles over tariffs and toll rates, ore quotas and pavement repairs. But the careful eye she had nevertheless kept on the overall flow of discussion — who was speaking when, and in response to whom, and in what sort of tone — and on the fleeting exchanges in Iglishmêk being passed around the table had told her that her Elven friend had generally acquitted himself well.

“Ach, that’s only how King Anzîl looks when she’s trying not to laugh — not at you,” she added hastily, seeing the familiar flush creeping up his neck. “At Khobin, mostly. His face when you congratulated him on his upcoming nuptials was priceless.” 

The flush spread, flooding his cheeks. “Did I mistake him? He didn’t say anything — I thought — last time I was here you told me braids like his meant —”

She’d sported similar braids on his last visit, woven with silver-and-agate beads, and had first explained them and then introduced the person they signified when Caranthir had asked; five years on, she and Belrís still shared a frequent chuckle at the memory of him stammering and blushing his way through that first meeting with his friend’s betrothed, nearly falling on his face when he tried to stoop low enough to kiss Belrís’s hand. Now, Telchar shot him an amused glance. “Braids, yes, but he has promise-beads on the left side only. Meaning he’s asked, but she hasn’t answered.” 

Caranthir sat down on a workbench, looking as he always did absurdly large for the space with his knees folded up nearly level with his chest, and covered his face with a groan. “So now I’ve gone and insulted none less than the head of the Masons’ Guild — the overseer of everything having anything to do with stonework here — in the midst of a negotiation over _quarrying rights_. Wonderful. I should have told Maedhros to come instead of me. He never makes these sorts of blunders.”

Telchar rolled up her sleeves and began clearing a space on the cluttered table behind Caranthir, then pulled her crumpled sketches from her pocket and spread them on the cleared surface. Paper was one benefit of trading with Thargelion; before Caranthir had established his domain, paper, whether made of birchbark or pressed wood-pulp or soft vellum, had been something of a rarity in the Dwarven cities of the Ered Luin, where wood mostly went to mine roof supports and forges, and hides went to the Leatherworkers’ Guild. Writing was done on stone or clay, or if it did not need to last, on slate with chalk. But Caranthir and his people had worked out a way to pound the pith of the fast-growing sedges around Lake Helevorn into flat sheets that could take charcoal or ink or even gold or silver leaf. It was abundant, renewable, lightweight, and, best of all, not prone to getting accidentally wiped clean by careless apprentices. 

“Your brother is considered a skilled diplomat among your people, yes? But you are staunch in the defense of what is yours, and make good use of what we trade you, and promptly pay the price agreed on. You drive bargains hard but fair, and draft contracts that are careful enough to be carved in stone. The only thing you value inaccurately is your own worth.”

Caranthir dropped his hand from his face in order to glare at her, but she knew him well enough now to recognize a glare that was mostly for show, and to sense the gratitude behind it. He was not, she thought, used to being preferred among his brothers, and responded to anything unaccustomed by growing prickly. “I blame you, you know. You never explained anything about beads.” 

“Be at ease. He’s in no danger, and nor are you. Everyone but Khobin himself can see his beloved is just as besotted with him, plain as the beard on my face, though Mahal knows why. You watch, she’ll say him yes before the day is out tomorrow.” It had, she thought, been quite satisfying to see prim, officious Khobin become an object of gentle teasing for every Dwarrow at the table, and all thanks to Caranthir, who let out a soft snort and relaxed, lounging back with his elbows on the table behind him and stretching out his long legs to cross his booted feet at the ankles.

“With any luck he’ll be so relieved he’ll make some concessions for the new southern quarry sites. They’re much farther away than the old sites, and we’re doing most of the transport now for both peoples, since few enough of your folk seem keen to mess about with barges. That has to count for something.” 

“Ah, as to that, I cannot say. I am, after all, a representative of Tumunzahar in the negotiations. Besides, you said you weren’t going to bring work out of the meeting hall.” She eyed his forearms for a moment, then selected one of her sketches and started jotting down rough dimensions in the margins. 

“So I did.”

“Though it was rather funny to see you going at him over the particulars of paving stone density. He assumed you lot were all jewel-smiths and minstrels and whatnot — confectioners, more or less — so he was rather taken aback when you proved to have a solid foundational knowledge of stonework.”

Caranthir’s lips curled in amusement at that, making him look rather like the little mountain-cat her nephew had caught as a kitten and raised to keep mice from the grain-stores, whenever it managed to steal a piece of fish off someone’s plate. Usually Telchar’s. She discovered she found the expression a lot less infuriating on Caranthir’s face than on the cat’s, especially given that it was directed at the officious head of the Masons’ Guild rather than at herself. 

“I did design my own fortress, you know,” he informed her, unnecessarily. “Wait, _confectioners_?”

Telchar shrugged and waved an airy hand in a gesture that encompassed the narrow, ruby-studded circlet Caranthir wore, his engraved silver ear cuffs, and the filigreed arm-bands accentuating his biceps. Belrís had commented, once, that he did have rather nice biceps, for an Elf, which had set off a round of giggles between her and Telchar that only ended when Telchar gave her own, considerably larger, biceps an exaggerated flex, picked up her wife bodily, and carried her to bed. “Elven craft all looks terribly delicate, especially to someone like Khobin, though I’ll grant your stuff is sturdier than the frippery Thingol’s folk like to wear. But in general, Elven jewels, Elven clothes, Elven speech, Elven songs… little more than spun sugar.” 

“Hah! Perforce I must then walk around constantly encircled by a cloud of flies, eager for a taste of my clothing. Surely he doesn’t think the same of our weapons and armour, at least.”

“I suspect if you asked him, he’d say you were all daft for favouring swords and bows over a nice spiked axe. But I’m not one to judge. Belrís prefers the crossbow herself.”

“Fair enough. Though I should perhaps also raise a defence on Maglor’s behalf as to the songs. He believes everything he composes carries a weighty transcendence.”

“I’ve heard him play, if you recall. Nice enough for what it was, I’ll grant, but on the whole, too many notes and too few drums.” Caranthir actually burst out laughing at that, and Telchar grinned, for it was rare to see him unbend enough to give in so wholly to mirth. 

“I shall let him know you said that, when next I visit the Gap.”

“Do.” She nudged him with an elbow. “And budge over, my drawing-board’s got enough clutter without you draping yourself all over it.” 

Obligingly he sat up, twisting around to watch her work with interest and eyeing the notes she’d made in messy Cirth around the sketch she’d chosen, a graceful pommel and crossguard designed for a hand-and-a-half sword. “Is that for a new piece?” 

“Aye. Mayhaps I’ll even finish it by the time we have our treaty.”

As it turned out, she did, mostly because the negotiations dragged on for weeks. They were more wearying for Caranthir than for her, since she really only had to focus on the metalworking provisions and ore quotas, while he, the only Elf permitted to be present in the King’s debate hall, had to pay close attention to all of it. He looked distinctly tired as they left the final session together, his signature etched in his impeccable Cirth beneath King Anzîl’s and the guildmasters’. 

“To the Void with terms and treaties,” he grumbled, stretching his neck to one side with an audible crack. “I could use a drink.”

Telchar patted his hand consolingly. “I have something better; come on.”

“Better than ale?”

“Better than _mead_ , you great lummox.”

“ _Now_ you have my attention. This had better be worth it.” He fell silent as she led him past her outer workshop, where she supervised her apprentices, and into the inner one behind it; she had never before invited him to enter her private workshop, and he had known better than to ask. This was where she did her most demanding work, and her most creative. 

The fire was down to banked embers, but resting in a sconce on the wall was a lampstone — another benefit of the trade they had established with the Noldor. Its light glinted off the sword she now took down from the rack where she’d left it. She had only finished the final polishing the day before. She held it out toward Caranthir.

His face slackened into a look of awe. Reverently he lifted the sword from her hands and tilted it to examine the edge, knowing better than to test his thumb on anything she had forged. Even in the dim light of the lampstone, the blade gleamed, now warm and red, now silver-blue. 

“Aulë wept. This is a masterpiece.” He turned back toward her, wondering. “Truly, Aulë himself would have wept.”

It was one of those disconcerting moments when she remembered that he had crossed the sea from the land of the Valar, and was old enough to have known her Maker, and probably could tell her with some accuracy what Mahal might have said or done. She fought off the shiver that gave her and summoned up a smile.

“It is yours.”

He let out a sharp, explosive breath, as if she had given him a blow to the gut rather than a gift from her forge. “I can’t accept this.”

“I made it for you.”

“I cannot justify paying the fortune this is worth, not to buy myself a sword when I already have one, and when others need new weapons more.”

Coming from anyone else she would have taken the suggestion of payment as a grave insult; from him, she only snorted.

“It’s not meant for sale, foolish Elf,” she informed him firmly. “It’s a gift.”

He shook his head slowly, seeming almost lost. “I have done nothing to earn this.”

“You saved Olchar’s life, the last battle you fought together, at least twice over.”

“That hardly counts, she’s saved mine just as often —”

“You keep our roads safe and our passes free of Orcs,” she cut him off, “you uphold your contracts and honour your words. You are no master mason, but you value good stone; you are at best a competent smith, but you value good metal, because you understand the worth of the work. You redesigned my supply system so that I never now run short of ore or fuel, and have to pester the Miners’ Guild or the Woodworkers’ for spare supplies, and asked nothing in return.”

He muttered something under his breath that included the words ‘supply system’, ‘nightmare’, and ‘as much for my sanity’s sake as yours’, which she ignored.

“But this is not for that. This is because you were a prideful, pompous ass when you first came to our city” — that drew a brief look of outrage from him, as she had known it would, but she gave him no time to speak — “yet now you share our ale and, better yet, our mead; because you are welcome in my workshop as you have made me welcome in your halls; because you laugh at my siblings’ follies and let me laugh at your brothers’; because you listen for hours when I speak of alloys and tempering methods though I know it bores you. This is a gift, for a friend.”

His mouth was hanging open by the time she finished, and when he spoke he sounded rather choked. “Telchar —”

“That is not how my name is pronounced,” she interrupted, to spare him having to find words for the emotion that lay naked on his face. It was an old and familiar argument between them, and it worked; now he looked fondly exasperated and a little sardonic, and not so overwhelmed.

“If I haven’t managed it in the last thirty years, _Telchar_ , I’m not going to manage it now. There are plenty of linguists among my blasted brothers and cousins who would be delighted to argue with you over whether Elven tongues can be trained to produce velar aspirated consonants in Khuzdul, or whether we are physically incapable of it; but you know well enough I am not one of them.”

She rolled her eyes. “You know the loremasters’ term for ‘velar aspirated consonant’ in three different languages, yet you cannot _pronounce_ one in any. And this is how a Khuzd may identify a Noldo, yes?”

He let out a quick huff of laughter. “Damn right.” Then he sobered. “But, truly —”

“I know, I know, you already have a sword. It is completely ill-suited to the way you fight.”

He raised his eyebrows, a hint of a smile curling at the corners of his mouth. “My brother Curufin made that sword, you know, and he is widely regarded as one of the best smiths among my people.”

“And he made you as fine a piece of craftsmanship as any, objectively speaking, but a sword should be fitted to its wielder, and yours, my friend, is not. He can’t have watched you fight very much, before he made it.”

Abruptly Caranthir grew serious; almost sad. “He had hardly seen me fight at all, because I _hadn’t_ really fought much at all, when he made it, not truly, not in battle. Twice only — and I hardly knew what I was doing both times…” His gaze turned inward, as if he were returning in memory to one of those ancient battles, and seeing it before him as though it were happening anew.

“But now you have fought many battles,” she said, softly, and after a moment his eyes refocused on her. She gave him a fierce smile. “And I have watched you fight them, enough at least to know that you contract with honour but fight with cunning. You need something quicker, lighter, more versatile than the heavy longsword your brother made that demands two hands to wield. This will give you that, with a weighted pommel that’s a weapon in its own right into the bargain. And for the blade — it was forged with a tempering method even your crafty brother will not know, for I have only just invented it, and it makes steel that burns with the heat of Earth-fires and the cold of ice.” 

He was turning the sword back and forth in a few slow experimental passes. It moved like a fluid extension of his arm, and she could see that he felt its perfect balance.

“Would you rather it lie idle?” she pressed, sensing him waver. “No Dwarrow here will bother with a sword taller than they are.” Still, he hesitated, though now she could tell he was close to acquiescing — to the sword, at least. No doubt there would be a whole new battle of wills when he attempted to refuse the second half of his gift, she thought, tugging at her beard. Then a solution struck her. 

“Here.” She handed him a long knife made from the same tempered steel as the sword, with an edge just as sharp. She had made it before starting the sword, as an experiment in the technique. “A gift for your brother, too, to soothe his pride when you discard his weapon for mine.”

He examined the knife, then met her eyes with amusement crinkling the corners of his own. “Are you sure?” She nodded. “Curufin will be livid, but he won’t turn down something this good. You’ve never even met Curvo. How in Arda can you predict him this well?”

“I’ve met _you_ ,” she told him, dry, and he shook his head, resigned.

“Telchar…”

“Save your thanks. It will be enough to see you bear it bravely and wield it well, with courage and fury against our common foe.” 

He held the sword aloft, and a look of iron-hard determination filled his gaze. “That at least I think I can do.”

“Good.” She passed him a scabbard and, once the blade was safely sheathed, gave a gentle shove to the small of his back. “ _Now_ we can find those drinks you spoke of.”

**Author's Note:**

> Khuzd (Khuzdul): Dwarrow, Dwarf (pl. Khazâd)
> 
> I feel like Caranthir never gets enough love, and as a fellow socially inept math nerd, I sympathize.
> 
> This came through less than I’d like in this fic, but Caranthir has put in a fair bit of effort to learn to be less of a cactus with Telchar; she’d have ditched him ages ago if she were doing all the emotional work in their friendship.


End file.
